Suspected Mnangagwa allies’ homes demolished

FIVE houses belonging to suspected allies of Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare’s New Msasa Park suburb were demolished on Wednesday as Zanu PF factional fights took an ugly turn.

BY OBEY MANAYITI

The houses were built on land donated to two Zanu PF co-operatives, Mukuvisi Tashinga and Tushashe, by Msasa (Private) Limited in 2008 and about 1 200 ruling party members have since been allocated stands.

One of the houses demolished by a suspected group of Zanu PF members in New Msasa Park housing co-operative in Harare on Wednesday

According to witnesses, rival Zanu PF members armed with shovels, picks and metal bars were allegedly moving around targeting homes reportedly owned by Mnangagwa sympathisers.

One of the affected residents, Fred Matanga, confirmed that factionalism was at play, saying he had lost thousands of dollars worth of property and cash to the illegal demolitions, which were not sanctioned by the courts.

“They came here at around 10:30am, but I was not home. I then heard from neighbours who asked if we were leaving the place because property had been loaded into a truck by this group of 15 known Zanu PF members,” Matanga said.

“When I got home, they said they wanted to demolish the house and dump our property about 200 metres away. I was about to leave for South Africa, where I am employed, but I cannot see my passport anymore and bus fare. My mother kept a lot of money here and she has gone to file a report at Hatfield Police Station.”

Matanga added: “This is really disturbing because we have been left homeless. It’s like we are paralysed now. It’s very true that factional politics is at play here.”

Residents later mobilised to stop the demolitions, forcing the demolition team, suspected to belong to the G40 faction in Zanu PF, to flee for their lives.

Blessing Zimbiti said he watched helplessly when his house was being demolished and there was nothing he could do because of fear.

“They were many and intimidating. There was nothing I could do to stop them,” he said.

Zimbiti confirmed the demolition team fled after angry residents threatened to “deal with them” since they failed to produce a court order empowering them to demolish the houses.

Suspended former Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs in Harare, Dan Musukuma, said even though he did not own a stand on the disputed land, he had unearthed serious embezzlement of funds by a group of land barons who were fleecing home-seekers.

He said residents who supported him were now under siege.

“Factional politics is now allowed to interfere and tamper with the social security of the people, but unfortunately, this is harm that is being imposed upon innocent people by other people of the same political party,” Musukuma said.

“I really want to believe that politics is at play here and there are certain people that are now falling victim of being alleged to be associated with one person one way or the other. It’s factional politics.”

Police in Harare said they were still looking for details of the matter.

14 Responses to Suspected Mnangagwa allies’ homes demolished

Those who were old enough during the entire eighties would recall that the Zapu supporters bore this style of brutality and the perpetrators went scot free, they were never made to account for their callous and beastly behaviour,some of the victims even lost lives in this style of violence.Once one is perceived to be the enemy of the Ayotolla of Zimbabwe,that individual becomes the legitimate target for repression and even loses state protection,that is, even police are restrained from taking appropriate action against perpetrators.It happened in Gweru,Que Que Harare,and elsewhere particularly after the general election of 1985.Some of the current victims were in actual fact perpetrators or beneficiaries of that violence.

“Factional politics is now allowed to interfere and tamper with the social security of the people,but unfortunately,this is harm that is being imposed upon innocent people by other people of the same political party.” Musukuma said.
(1) How innocent are the victims, are they not just having a taste of their own medicine?
(2) If the victims had been opposition party supporters would you have raised a finger?
(3) What makes you believe that you belong to the same party when you wantonly destroy each other’s property?
(4) Is it true that the disputed land was “donated” to two Zanu pf co-operatives? In which case i suspect you used political influence to forcibly acquire that land. Saka ndezvenyu izvo no mercy from any progressive minds.
(5) Have you now been disillusioned to the fact that Zanu pf is a violent party?

On a different note, can the government do something about the situation that is obtaining at Crowhill Views where property owners are being denied to develop their stands besides them having paid in full for the stands and some even have title deeds. Reason being that they should top up despite that they paid in full as per the agreement of sale. The developer did not develop anything in the first place and now demands any extra $50 per square meter. This day light robbery. Government needs to investigate this unlawful demand and abuse of residents who are the rightful owners of the stands else residents team up and deal with this Bvute guy who is one of the developers.

This story has no head and tail, most probably the reporter wants to create his own version of the actual facts on the ground, trying to politicize a civil/criminal case involving rival housing cooperative.Rubbish, you let the nation down by your warped thinking.

The bottom line war vet, is that the housing cooperatives sprang/spring during election time and the requirement or qualification was/is production of a Zanu pf membership card.It is very likely that political factionalism is reaping across these so called housing cooperatives and has escalated to violent proportions.As long as they were created and got affiliated to Zanu pf, there is noway these could escape the worsening factional squables going on in the party.

War vet there is no way these cooperatives could be spared from factional squables which have graduated into physical confrontation because of their historical back grounds.These cooperatives were/are formed during election time and all particularly in Harare, are Zanu pf affiliates.As a result the acrimonious factional wrangles going on could not escape them,simple and straight forward.

Don’t keep on saying, ‘ZANU PF ZANU PF’, Its no more there is now Lacoste and G4O. We even expect them to field different presidential candidates in 2018. The leading political parties are MDC-T and ZIMPF.

Vana varikumahumbwe. Leave them like that. Some are testing their own medicine.